Corry (Silk) (00:52.094) Boys and girls, ladies and gents, welcome to another episode of Stadium Miguel. It's your boy, Corey.

Dan Thompson (01:00.162) It's Dan.

De La Torre (01:01.351) Delatory.

Jordan Scarlett (01:02.262) And your boy J.Scar would do maybe. Yes, sir, man, I had a blast, man. It was a great time. It was a little busy, but when I got to having fun, I was having fun. Went to a couple of NFL PA events, got a lot of a lot of former players and current players went to the hotel, got to check for it and try to see for a little bit. So it was a good vibe overall.

De La Torre (01:05.582) What up 2-5 straight off of Bourbon Street.

De La Torre (01:29.424) Nights I don't remember with people I'll never forget.

Corry (Silk) (01:30.442) Hey, happy birthday, Happy birthday. It was your birthday weekend as well. So happy belated birthday. What year you in again?

Jordan Scarlett (01:31.908) You can say that again.

De La Torre (01:34.906) Happy belated.

Jordan Scarlett (01:36.918) Yeah, appreciate it.

Corry (Silk) (01:41.194) 29

Jordan Scarlett (01:42.148) I don't even want to say it too close to 30, man. 29, big 2-9 though. Right?

De La Torre (01:43.676) Come on.

De La Torre (01:47.152) Big Sean Alexander here. Eric Dickerson.

Corry (Silk) (01:52.254) Yeah. 37.

De La Torre (01:53.294) Okay. Close. They're numbers. Close. Same family. Numbers. happy Dan Thompson year, Jordan. Happy Dan Thompson year.

Jordan Scarlett (01:53.316) 37.

Yeah.

Dan Thompson (01:59.286) I wore 29.

Corry (Silk) (01:59.658) terrible year. They gave whatever jerseys was left in the back. It's 29 back there.

Jordan Scarlett (02:00.76) Okay, happy day, yeah.

Dan Thompson (02:09.358) No, No, sir. I was a hockey goalie and at the time a lot of goalies were in the thirties and I forgot who it was. Somebody was like 29 or 28, 27. I'm like, I want to do something a little bit different. So, um, you know, when you got to plane travel, we got to pick your number and went with 29. We just rode with that for the next, I don't know, eight, nine years.

Corry (Silk) (02:18.153) Hmm.

Corry (Silk) (02:21.726) Want to set a trend?

Corry (Silk) (02:27.954) Nice, nice, nice. I was getting some FOMO, man. Like, enlighten us on the Super Bowl vibes in this totality. I was looking at your IG story, Jordan, and the food, it had me, bruh. I was like, man, I don't want to be in that crowd, but that food looked like the vibes right now. I ain't gonna lie.

Jordan Scarlett (02:30.614) Okay.

Dan Thompson (02:32.461) Okay.

De La Torre (02:43.89) Mm-hmm.

Jordan Scarlett (02:47.522) Right? That was my main goal, man. I was trying to be out the way and eating good food all weekend. And I think we did a pretty good job with that. We got to try a lot of different, like famous spots. We ended up going to Moro's. It's like the real staple down there. And I was impressed. I can say I literally wasn't one restaurant I went to that I wasn't satisfied with the meal. I will say, though, I think the what's the name of that famous beignet spot?

De La Torre (03:14.802) Cafe du Monde.

Jordan Scarlett (03:15.608) Yeah, Cafe Dumas, I wasn't too impressed. I like Voodoo Bayous down here better, to be honest.

Dan Thompson (03:15.832) Yeah.

Corry (Silk) (03:16.084) No.

Yeah?

De La Torre (03:20.294) So people from New Orleans will tell you there are better beignets around the city. Cafe du Monde is just the name. It's the name. Yeah. So one of my friends born and raised in New Orleans, like parents got divorced and he spent some time. I met him when he was in high school. But whenever I go down there, hit him up. He's the tour guide. He takes me places that...

Dan Thompson (03:26.444) Yeah, right there. Why it's convenient.

Jordan Scarlett (03:28.084) Okay, okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

De La Torre (03:45.85) are not on Yelp, my, you can't really go wrong though in New Orleans when it comes to food. You can, you can go like McDonald's or Burger King. Bad decisions. Yes.

Jordan Scarlett (03:46.936) You're right, you're right.

Dan Thompson (03:51.212) No, no, can't. In my opinion, right. I think that New Orleans food is amongst my favorite. Creole. Yeah. And just the variety. Yeah.

Corry (Silk) (03:55.454) then you just uncultured.

Corry (Silk) (04:00.936) Yeah.

De La Torre (04:03.16) It's like a wild melty creole. Yeah, there's like French influence. You've got unbelievable seafood coming from the Gulf of whatever we're calling it now. Okay. And yeah, it's just unbelievable food there.

Dan Thompson (04:08.43) Mm-hmm.

Yeah, Mexico.

Corry (Silk) (04:15.562) I prefer America. Gulf of America slaps a little bit better, Dan. I ain't gonna lie. I didn't know we had an option. I didn't know we had an option. But once I was given the option, I was like, yeah.

Jordan Scarlett (04:21.472) I do, I do got it.

Dan Thompson (04:21.496) Now.

De La Torre (04:21.682) I didn't know the test was multiple choice. I did not know. hold on. Sorry. We've been remiss. We've been remiss. We should have started the show, Corey. Happy FSU Day to everyone out there. I think all of our listeners, all of our listeners are celebrating Happy 210, February 10th, forever known.

Dan Thompson (04:27.788) I don't think anybody else is calling it that, whatever. Golf America, golf Mexico.

Corry (Silk) (04:27.892) I am.

Jordan Scarlett (04:31.224) That's funny.

Corry (Silk) (04:36.008) Yeah, yeah, 100%.

Dan Thompson (04:37.848) Yeah. Right on here on the notes.

Jordan Scarlett (04:40.843) Hahaha.

Jordan Scarlett (04:45.956) That's crazy.

Corry (Silk) (04:46.974) Yeah.

De La Torre (04:49.454) as a happy Fuller State Day. Mike Norvell, shout out to you. Today is yours. Keys to the City.

Corry (Silk) (04:50.281) Yeah.

Dan Thompson (04:52.504) No shut up.

Jordan Scarlett (04:52.516) man.

Corry (Silk) (04:52.69) Yeah, only a man as great as Mike Neville could create the worst team we ever seen in Big Three history.

De La Torre (05:00.85) I remember FSU fans had them happy Gator Day on April 8th for years. So love to return the favor. Love to return the favor. Glad your day comes first. Because as numbers go, no, No. So happy Florida State Day. Hope we're all celebrated.

Corry (Silk) (05:02.666) Four and eight, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Been waiting to return that favor, 100%, 100%. They just don't hit the same anymore. You can't really troll four and eight if you went two and 10. It just doesn't work out.

Dan Thompson (05:05.955) Yeah.

Jordan Scarlett (05:13.709) Right?

Jordan Scarlett (05:17.538) Hahaha

Dan Thompson (05:20.301) No, no, no, no,

Jordan Scarlett (05:20.726) Yeah, that's funny.

Corry (Silk) (05:23.422) Jordan, you tap in with, I'm sorry, one more Super Bowl. Did you tap in with Fred and Chauncey after the Super Bowl? What was the vibes like?

Dan Thompson (05:23.99) before I take them.

Jordan Scarlett (05:34.21) Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was good vibes and boys was dumb lit. Obviously they ended up hitting up some clubs and I think Fred and Chauncey split up. I think some went to, you know, the gentleman's club and others went to regular clubs. So that's how the night ended up. But another note from that weekend before I forget, I was at an agent party.

Corry (Silk) (05:44.778) Yeah.

Jordan Scarlett (05:53.336) forgot the name of the agency, Something Culture, I believe. I'm not 100 % sure. But my wife is good friends with one of the ladies that working at the agency. And I run into Coach Jaluk on the second floor in the VIP room. I'm like, what up? Yeah, he like you in my city, man. Da da da da da. I'm like, okay, man. Nice to finally meet you. Da da da da. It was a surprise, but yeah, he showed me a good time.

Corry (Silk) (06:03.498) No, all in the VIP room.

Dan Thompson (06:05.101) Mmm.

De La Torre (06:05.857) shut out.

Corry (Silk) (06:15.166) You recognize his face and everything like that? Yeah? That's dope.

Jordan Scarlett (06:19.364) Yeah, I was like, he looked familiar for real. And then I just was like, yo, you what's the name? He's like, yeah, man, what's up? I'm I'm Jordan. He's like, oh, what's up, man? So yeah, that was a cool one.

Corry (Silk) (06:25.896) That's dope, that's dope. That's fire. Nick got some, we're gonna say the Super Bowl takes towards the end of the show. Nick got some halftime takes that I wanna hear. He haven't shared them yet.

Dan Thompson (06:38.114) Yeah, I want to probably give an opposing view.

Corry (Silk) (06:40.531) likely.

Jordan Scarlett (06:42.244) you

Corry (Silk) (06:44.106) Yeah.

Dan Thompson (06:44.12) So I'm ready to debate. Ready to debate.

De La Torre (06:44.462) That means... That's fine. just means you're... That just means you're crusty old and white. If you're opposing my takes.

Jordan Scarlett (06:46.451) Hahaha

Corry (Silk) (06:47.518) Hahaha

Dan Thompson (06:51.98) I mean, all, I mean, I am older. I am white. I am white. I am for sure white.

Corry (Silk) (06:53.962) you

De La Torre (06:54.96) Okay, again, again, as my music selection, as my music selection has shown, I'm for the culture and you are.

Dan Thompson (07:01.364) All I know is if people put a picture of me and a picture of you next to each other, they would not pick me as the older looking one and the more out of touch one. You know what I mean?

Corry (Silk) (07:06.078) Yeah.

De La Torre (07:06.309) for the culture.

Jordan Scarlett (07:08.996) You

De La Torre (07:09.134) Hmm, that's That's That is true. Distinguished.

Dan Thompson (07:13.902) But let's get into the show. We've got a lot to talk about, a lot of coaching stuff to go over. We're going to bring on Evan Mayakawa from EvanMayakawa.com. He is big in basketball analytics. His stuff gets talked about all over college basketball. So we're going to be excited to talk about Florida Gators basketball who beat Auburn, number one team in the country. Second time this year that they've beat the number one team in the country. And also the second program.

Corry (Silk) (07:32.126) Yes, sir.

Dan Thompson (07:43.354) amongst I think five total that have ever beaten the number one twice in both football and basketball in this in any history of time in one year. So really cool story for them. Let's get a quick brunt insurance ad read and then let's get into the show before we welcome Evan.

Corry (Silk) (08:00.49) Stadium Miguel is powered by the great folks at Brunt Insurance and financial services. Anything you need insured in the Southeast. Most importantly, the state of Florida from the Panhandle to the Keys. My man, Greg, you. Home insurance, auto insurance, life insurance. You have a motorcycle, dirt bike, RV.

Any of those things you get an insurer bruntinsurance.com get you a free quote or you give them a call at 954-589-2204. Greg's been insuring my home for almost like 10 years or something crazy, man. Great customer service. You get them on a phone call after storms, et cetera, having any issues, wanna get a cheaper price. Don't cost you a dime, get a free quote. Greg.

De La Torre (08:48.668) Greg, to do, baby? STF Pride. Hey, might have to, Valen said you told him he can come on and then Flory got smoked in Knoxville. I told him he could come on and then they lost. I said, we'll get you on. I see him in the chat now, but I told him he can come on after a win. initially did and then he called me to rat on Silk that Silk had.

Corry (Silk) (08:48.809) Yes sir.

Jordan Scarlett (08:51.556) you

Corry (Silk) (08:55.24) and do basketball. Yeah. Right.

Dan Thompson (09:00.993) Wait, what?

Corry (Silk) (09:02.857) Yeah.

Dan Thompson (09:08.086) You invited him on to talk basketball? Okay.

Corry (Silk) (09:11.037) Right.

Dan Thompson (09:16.3) Okay, I like that.

De La Torre (09:17.874) not fulfilled his offer. And then I said, up to the team. said, it's up to the team. Team's gonna win.

Corry (Silk) (09:18.794) Here's the thing. So by the time I got back to it, I did speak to Valen, because Valen, every time we talk basketball, I'd be like, bro, we gotta get you on the show because we need somebody knowledgeable, but also passionate about, yeah, from a fan perspective. Like getting the writers is cool. So we talked about it. And then, like Nick said, we lost. And then we had a jam packed show of, I think,

Dan Thompson (09:35.576) fan.

Yeah.

Corry (Silk) (09:43.626) an interview, a guest or something else. It just got a little busy there. But today, Dan put it in the chat. We need somebody for basketball. And I was busy. By the time I got back to my phone, he already had a guest. But I was gonna throw it in there like, yo, let's have Velo come on. He was at the Auburn game. It'll be perfect. Anyway.

Dan Thompson (09:56.898) Yeah, I'm in.

Dan Thompson (10:02.329) Yeah. A big fan of Valen. I even know who Valen is. One time, just a few weeks ago, Nick confused Vari and Valen on this year program. I would never, I would never do that. Nick, I'll pull the tape, brother. So, but huge win over Auburn. Valen was there. Incredible victory. Down early by a lot, came storming back. Auburn kept there, got a little closer towards the end of the game. Still won by nine points.

Corry (Silk) (10:09.151) that's racist.

Dan Thompson (10:31.384) Gators sit number three in the country behind Auburn, Alabama, and then Florida. I don't know if you could have put a time capsule, you know, 10 years ago and say, Hey, there's going to be three SEC teams at near the end of the season. And those are going to be Auburn and Alabama and Florida. I would have maybe picked one of those programs 10 years ago. Well, I guess Florida had Mike White, so I would not have picked, but like, you know what I mean? but the SEC is dominating college basketball this year. So, Gators have a,

Still a tough schedule ahead, but go and defeat two number one programs. Blow two number one programs out and then get blown out by that. But you get it.

Corry (Silk) (11:07.583) Yeah.

What do think about the rankings?

Dan Thompson (11:16.204) I mean, I guess it makes sense, right? No, mean, yeah, he should be here in a second. I mean, I think it makes sense that they're still number one. It's their first loss and it was to the number five team in the program in two months. Nick, you're on mute, brother. No, first loss in two months. Yeah. And then.

De La Torre (11:32.594) Second loss. They were 20 and 1. SCC. Oh yeah, yeah. I always wonder this though, and this is maybe tinfoil hat. We haven't had a regular season 1 vs 2 since 2008. And it was the basketball Iron Bowl is this week. I always wonder if, well like one, if Duke would have taken care of business, if Duke doesn't lose at Clemson, I think you easily see them jump up. They jump into the number one spot.

Dan Thompson (11:45.608) wow.

Corry (Silk) (11:47.326) Yeah. A marketing.

De La Torre (12:00.978) and you see Auburn slide down, but when Duke doesn't handle business, I wonder if, I don't know, because there's so many people, so many writers voting in the A people. But it's fun to be a conspiracy theorist.

Dan Thompson (12:14.028) I think that Florida has either the number one or number two resume in the country right now. I think they've had some losses, which are going to hurt. I mean, you have three total losses on the year. So it's hard to complain about being ranked number three. I think that we all thought that Florida is going to have a good program this year. I don't know if any of us thought that they would be number three in the country right now. But with that, we'll get into some basketball talk with Evan Mayakawa here.

Corry (Silk) (12:20.404) Mark me down for one.

Dan Thompson (12:44.522) Evan, can you hear us? You there, brother?

Corry (Silk) (12:48.244) Yeah

Evan Miyakawa (12:49.081) Definitely here.

Dan Thompson (12:50.922) Awesome, it's a pleasure to have you.

De La Torre (12:51.908) Evan, real quick, easy one to start with. I was just purporting a conspiracy theory that maybe Auburn stays number one because the basketball Iron Bowl was happening and we haven't had a number one versus number two regular season since 2008. Do I need to take my Timpo hat off or am I on to something there?

Jordan Scarlett (12:52.002) I know.

Evan Miyakawa (13:14.075) I do not have that much trust in AP voters to have any level of sophistication near that, unfortunately.

De La Torre (13:16.667) Okay.

So I don't need to storm the AP building. Okay. Okay. Stay here in Gainesville. Easily influenced.

Evan Miyakawa (13:23.963) No, I do not think so.

Corry (Silk) (13:24.372) Now just tell them to. Yeah, just, let's see what type of bond money you got, man.

you

De La Torre (13:33.298) you

Jordan Scarlett (13:34.276) Thank

Dan Thompson (13:34.35) Evan, know that we've followed you quite a bit on Twitter or X for a long time and you are very much diving into the analytics behind basketball. And you do some very interesting things. You talk about most impactful big men. You talk about best duos in the SEC. And just looking back at our tweets back and forth, who are the best three-man lineups in college basketball?

Give us your perspective on Florida Gators basketball and what's worked so well for them and how they've been able to be so successful this year.

Evan Miyakawa (14:10.043) If I had to pick a couple things, the first would be I think that their backcourt when you talk about Walter Clayton, Will Richard, Elijah Martin, that three guard combo is arguably as good as anyone in the country. I haven't run the numbers recently to see analytically where that stacks up in terms of my player metrics, but it would for sure be probably top three at least. So when you have that and then you're getting this production on the backend of the season from Alex Condon and Thomas Haug where

We had earlier games this season like Florida's loss at home to Missouri where it was like, the guards are good, but the front court is just lacking. And then you flip the page and see how they absolutely not just handled or stayed toe to toe with Auburn's big men, but arguably played better than them down the stretch on the road. I think it was really impressive. So when you talk about the development of their front court, I think that's huge. The other thing that I think about this team is analytically speaking, this team has

one of the highest ceilings, if not the highest ceiling in the country. I mean, they arguably got the best win in the country this weekend on the road to Auburn in terms of how consistent Florida is game to game. They are one of the least consistent teams in the country. What that means is they can have one game where they play absolutely lights out and they're good enough to beat anybody. And then you can have another game where they kind of lay an egg and there there's more of a variance from game to game with this team. And so I think what that means for me is a result like we saw

against Auburn where not only did they beat them, we certainly knew that was possible, but they absolutely crushed them really from about the midway point of that first half all the way through the end. That's totally in the cards, but next game they could really struggle in a game that they're not supposed to. And so, you know, I think that's a little bit interesting thinking about their prospects in the tournament because I do think at their best they're able to beat anybody, but are they able to string that consistently six games in a row? I'm not sure. So that'll be a little bit interesting to track going forward.

Corry (Silk) (16:05.979) Evan, is there anything in the numbers that tell you does a high scoring or low scoring game favor Florida?

Evan Miyakawa (16:17.787) Good question. I don't know off the top of my head, but I do really think when you look at the makeup of this team, you can really tell when they're having an online or not based on if they're just able to quickly rack up points. One of the things that I track on my website that you may be familiar with is the kill shot, which is any time that a team scores 10 or more unanswered points, it's kind of a way of measuring, are you able to go on scoring runs or sort of.

spurt ability in games to really kind of flip the script quickly. And looking at Florida, they're one of only three teams in the SEC to average at least one 10-0 run per game. And what that means is pretty much about once per game, if not more, this team is going to go on a run where they score 10, 12, 15 points unanswered. And that's a really good sign for this team in the sense that if you're behind, you can flip the script. If you're kind of in a close game, you can quickly

you know, put a lead together and on the flip side, they only have given up six 10 runs all season. That's less than about, you know, 0.25 a game. So it's pretty rare that they give them up. So when you have that in the cards, that's, a pretty good ingredient for success typically.

Dan Thompson (17:34.254) What do you think, Evan is, I mean, I know you probably think the ceiling is a national championship, but what are you realistically looking for out of the Gators over the next couple of weeks to kind of solidify where you think that they might end up come March or I guess early.

Evan Miyakawa (17:50.651) I would really like to see them push for that one seed. I believe they can do it. I believe that they are good enough to do it. I think they're good enough to compete for at least a share of the SEC title if they play well. I have Florida ranked fourth in the country and that's a pretty big deal considering the fact that the top three teams analytically in terms of who I predict to be the best going forward, Duke, Houston and Auburn are and have been for a while a tier above everyone else, but then Florida is that next team in there.

I really want to see them consistently grinding out results. The SEC man is, we've talked about all year how good this conference is. It's historically great. And that just means that every single game is going to be a dogfight. And it's one thing to be on your best game and have a result like they had against Auburn on the road. to do that every single night in and night out is more difficult. so

That's what I want to see from this Florida team is can they consistently be excellent in this conference? It's going to be a tough task, but I do think they're good enough to do it. And I think I would really like to see them kind of reach that potential there.

De La Torre (18:56.722) I think what has been impressive to me, Florida is not a really deep rotation team. I just looked up the numbers. They're really like a seven man rotation. This past week, coming off of that bad loss in Knoxville, you had to play at home without Walt and then you go on the road at number one, you're playing without Elijah and you're talking about how good that front court is at three man front court. Were you impressed at how they were able to play Walt, who I think, am I out of base?

like he could be an SEC player of the year contention and you're playing without him. And then also is it good to maybe get an Urban Klazvar and some other guys some looks because if you come down to the tournament you're playing so many games and hey if we need somebody else to get a shot hey they've gotten some reps some looks here late in the year.

Evan Miyakawa (19:47.407) I think the fact that they had Klavshar come out of pretty much nowhere. mean, I'm sure Auburn, he was not anywhere in their top five, six, seven players on the scout. yeah, and for him to hit those threes like he did, if you have that coming off your bench, that's a really big deal. yeah, I think the thing that I look about at this team is Walter Clayton definitely is the best player in this team. Like you mentioned, I think he is a first team SEC, know, teamer.

De La Torre (19:55.462) Probably not on the stat at all.

Evan Miyakawa (20:15.503) potentially a first team All-American if he continues to play well, but I do not think that this team relies on one guy to be excellent in order to win. When you look at their starting five, know, Walter Clayton, Will Richard, Elijah Martin, Condon, and then throwing Haugen there as well as their sixth man, all five of those guys rank top 100 in the country in my player value metric, Bayesian performance rating.

Basically what that means is when you look at what they are bringing to the team on a per possession basis, both in terms of their individual production, but also in terms of how they are impacting their team's chances of winning and of scoring better than the opponent, they are in the top 100 most valuable players in the country. And so you miss a guy like a Martin, like, bummer, but you still have four guys in the top 100. So I love that because it means that you don't, number one, if a guy's out, you're not.

Dan Thompson (20:56.781) What?

Evan Miyakawa (21:08.787) your game plan isn't ruined. And two, even if you have a guy or two have a bad game, you still have several others who can have a big impact. And so I really like that for sure.

Dan Thompson (21:19.862) No, just looking back, I'm trying to get the exact stats here, obviously, you know, Elijah Martin doesn't play in this game, but then you get Denzel Aberdeen who came in and really did a great job. And I think at one point, the Gators were five or six games into the year and had five or six different players score the most points to start the season. And it seems like there's a lot of back and forth with this team. They, they seem to play really well for each other. They seem to be completely bought in to the golden era. I here at the university of Florida.

What are some things, and I'm sorry if I missed it, what are some things that you'd like to see them improve on if they really need to get a deep run in March and April?

Evan Miyakawa (21:57.753) Yeah, I think one thing I already mentioned is just the consistency game to game, just because metrically they are, you know, one of the more inconsistent teams. do think another thing when I look at just ingredients for success with this team, a metric that I've kind of identified for them on a game to game basis really is that they often do live and die by the three point shooting this season when they are shoot. I have a cool feature on my website called keys to victory where.

for every single given team, basically pulls up all of your like team stats from a given game and identifies the ones that are most important to your specific team success. And if you boil it down to one metric for Florida, it is three point shooting. And specifically when they shoot above 34.5 % from three this year, or sorry, under Todd Golden over the last couple of years, they are 38 and eight, that's over 80 % wins. And when they're under that mark, they're losing more games than they're winning.

And that's a bigger disparity between wins and losses than most teams have. And so for this team, it's like, if you are shooting the ball reasonably well, you're going to win almost every single time. And when you're not, it's tough. So, you know, I think you're going to have games where they do shoot the ball well, and then it's pretty hard to beat them. But do you have another way of winning when the, when the three point shots aren't going in? Because, you know, this team is really tough to guard on the three point line. have so many capable scores and so many shifty guards who can create shots.

But some games it's not going in and in that case you gotta find another way to win. So, you how are you gonna do that?

Corry (Silk) (23:25.585) Also, it seems like the games.

De La Torre (23:26.066) That sounds like that sounds like you're you could have said it about Billy Donovan's teams that feels like we flooring basketball has been lived by the three died by the three for 30 years Sorry, so go ahead

Corry (Silk) (23:39.048) No, you're good. I think it's exact same opposite on the defensive end on our L's. We didn't defend the three good in every L. Am I wrong on that stat?

Evan Miyakawa (23:40.527) Yeah. Yep.

Evan Miyakawa (23:53.743) Yeah, let me pull that up here.

De La Torre (23:56.626) While you're looking that up, there's definitely been some games where, like Missouri, Missouri, just like, like one of those games where you just like tip your hat and you're like, okay, I guess the basket is the size of the Pacific ocean and they're, yeah, Kentucky same way.

Dan Thompson (24:07.178) or even Kentucky, right? mean, Kentucky couldn't hit the broad side of the arc. Yeah.

Corry (Silk) (24:07.198) Yeah. Kentucky was crazy.

Evan Miyakawa (24:11.759) Yeah, specifically those Kentucky and Missouri games. They did not defend a three well in those games. Tennessee, they did, but Tennessee is bit of a different animal. have their own way of winning and you're grinded out of fairs. So I don't think that applies as much.

De La Torre (24:26.234) Yeah, when Florida beat Tennessee here, it's like Tennessee is physical. They're like a football team and like, we're going to play this brand. And I think Florida came out and was more physical with Condon, with Hawk, with who I've dubbed, Florida's Dennis Rodman, Chinyalu, who is good for at least six points, 12 boards and three to four shoves a game. kind of playing that enforcer role. but yeah, it's.

We're talking about a team that's only lost three games, but there has been, I think, lapses on the defensive end, especially early on in games where they will get out to other teams will get out to a a big lead early.

Evan Miyakawa (25:04.773) Yeah, yeah, just pulling this up now, like all three losses that Florida's had this year, the opponent has shot better from three than them. It's pretty simple. So, and sometimes that's hard to control, but, but you know, game plan wise, it's certainly very important.

Dan Thompson (25:19.926) Yeah, and I know that that Kentucky game was a Bria that was just shooting lights out. I think he had 24 or 26 points in that game. And then he followed up the next couple of games. And I don't even know if over the course of the next four or five games, he had 26 points total. sometimes a player just gets hot and he got hot. So what other questions you guys got before we, want, I want everybody to go visit evanmaya.com. think it's a fantastic website. There's a lot of stuff on there you can get for free.

De La Torre (25:43.664) Mm-hmm.

Dan Thompson (25:47.318) I'd encourage you to support him. It's a very fair, I think monthly charge of I believe $5. Right. So a lot of great analytical stuff on there, including who are the best top 100 players or the best lineup metrics for the Florida Gators. Or if you're, if you're looking to do some advanced scouting of your own of who the Gators might play, but any final questions before we let Evan.

De La Torre (26:13.274) Yeah. Have we gotten eyes on Johnny Broom or was he still in Alex Connors pocket when Florida left Auburn?

Dan Thompson (26:21.154) Yeah

Corry (Silk) (26:23.208) Yeah

Evan Miyakawa (26:24.057) No comment there.

Dan Thompson (26:24.91) He's still serving pizza to the imagine how bad it must have. Imagine how bad it smelled inside of that basketball stadium and all those people camping out for a week. That's just bonkers. I hope they went home and took a shower. You know what I mean? But. Yeah, we will not. We will not be shouting out Bruce Pearl on the show.

De La Torre (26:25.244) Just wondering, one of the best players in the country. I'm just wondering if you've seen him since Saturday.

Corry (Silk) (26:31.348) Nah, you can't.

De La Torre (26:38.108) Well, first off, shout out to Bruce Pearl, because like that's Auburn. We just did. We just did. The Auburn basketball fans are lunatics. So shout out to them. I remember like they, someone made a deal about them camping out for like five days and they're like, it's because Bronnie's coming to town. And they were like, how dare you? And they community noted that poor journalists. But yeah, Bruce Pearl's a great coach as.

Corry (Silk) (26:41.886) Yeah.

Jordan Scarlett (26:43.915) Yeah

De La Torre (27:05.89) a member of a journalist from the Jewish journal was interviewing Todd after the Vanderbilt win, about two Jewish coaches playing together. Bruce Pearl, mensch great guy. Yeah. Todd hit him with their shalom. Yeah. It, yeah, go ahead. You're good. I was just.

Dan Thompson (27:17.998) He hit him with a shalom. I saw that. All right, Evan. Go. Nick, did you have a question or did you just want to pump up the Auburn students section?

Corry (Silk) (27:24.426) Hahaha

De La Torre (27:28.828) I was just, no, I wanted to pump up Auburn, know, our fans like when I pump up the other schools. And I was also just APB for Johnny Broom.

Jordan Scarlett (27:29.764) You

Corry (Silk) (27:35.494) ever.

Dan Thompson (27:36.298) Okay, very good.

Evan Miyakawa (27:37.765) Well, did you guys bring up the two man lineups thing yet that they mentioned on the ESPN broadcast?

Dan Thompson (27:44.467) We did not. That would be great for you to bring it up.

Evan Miyakawa (27:47.653) Yeah, so basically on the broadcast during the game, think it was, you know, Jay Billis mentioned that Todd Golden had directly told him that the two man lineup of Thomas Haug and Alex Condon was rated the best in the SEC. That directly comes from my website. So if you look at the best, are you sure about that? Let me pull up the.

Dan Thompson (28:09.698) Hog or Richard? think it was Richard and Hog. That's what it says on your website now. Could it changed? So maybe a couple days ago.

Evan Miyakawa (28:17.397) hold on. Let pull this up here. Uh-huh. No, so, okay. So lineup. So it depends on your possession threshold. So if you pull up under the lineup metric section, lineup ratings, best two-man lineups in the SEC who have played over 300 possessions together, it's Alex Condon and Thomas Haug. And they're comfortably first there. you know, looking at a pair who have played a decent amount. And Todd Golden mentioned that.

Dan Thompson (28:25.479) of course.

Evan Miyakawa (28:43.659) And there was reference on the broadcast that directly comes from my website. And basically you can look at any combination of players, two players together, three, four, five, et cetera. And it also adjusts for the strength of opponent that those specific players face when they're on the court. But yeah, that duo has been really, really good. And I think definitely a very underrated part of how good Florida has been. And as we mentioned, they've just gotten a lot better recently.

Corry (Silk) (29:05.36) I got it.

Dan Thompson (29:07.551) In one of the rankings on there, think it's, was it the Bayesian rating? I'm just trying to, I'm kind of going off memory here, but it basically ranks your offensive output, your defensive rate, and it kind of combines the score. You have Thomas Hawke, I know he plays less, right? He's more of a sixth man, but as the highest net rating on the Gators roster, which I think shows just how valuable he is. Obviously he plays less possessions, but just shows how valuable and how deep I guess the Gators are.

Evan Miyakawa (29:35.931) Yeah, I mean, basically a lot of it comes down to not only is his individual efficiency level or his numbers good, but when he is on the floor, specifically floors offense has been like awesome. They are when I look at his on off splits, the offense is scoring 16 more points per 100 possessions when Thomas how goes on the floor versus on the bench. So that basically points to like they when he is on the floor, he is really making a difference in terms of their offensive flow and

whether it's him scoring or someone else, he's a really critical part of this offense. And so that's reflected in his high BPR because it's basically showing that, when this guy is on the court, good things are happening. So, you know, let's give him credit for that.

Dan Thompson (30:15.106) So I do want to ask a question from the chat here. It's from our friend Valen. He said, how do you get those numbers when there are five players on the court at the same time? I think I have an idea, but if you could break that down.

Evan Miyakawa (30:25.743) Yeah, so for the, I'm assuming he's asking about the two man lineups because basically, you know, obviously when there's five players on the court, you you have each specific lineup, but getting those two man numbers is basically saying, okay, look at all the lineups that Florida has played and then filter it down just the times when both Alex Condon and Thomas Hauger on the floor. So it doesn't matter who the other three guys are, just the possessions when at least those two are on the court versus not on the court.

Dan Thompson (30:29.207) Yeah.

Evan Miyakawa (30:52.64) And that's sort of how you can break it down into smaller sections of players. And I think that's really helpful about that is five man lineup data is, can be somewhat unreliable, especially early on in the season, or if it's a lineup that hasn't played much, because there are so many different combinations of players that a team plays that unless it's your starting lineup or your second or third lineup, there's just not a lot of sample size to go off of. But when you break it down into smaller groups and say these two guys together, these three, two, three guys together.

The amount of sample size we have to deal with to get more of a reasonable conclusion as to what's happening is much more reliable and that's really helpful there.

Dan Thompson (31:26.742) Mm. Awesome.

De La Torre (31:28.762) You're getting more data points when you narrow your focus.

Evan Miyakawa (31:30.999) Exactly.

Corry (Silk) (31:32.67) Evan.

Dan Thompson (31:34.904) that so, go ahead.

Corry (Silk) (31:35.73) You said that even like Coach Golden, I know a lot of these coaches use you guys analytics. How much of basketball and just sports in general do you think like analytics is changing? Like, and do you expect like more analytical roles around sports in the future?

Evan Miyakawa (31:55.019) I mean, I think it's increasing every year. think people are realizing that the more that you can use data to quantify the unquantifiable and move away from just your own opinions on things, but combining data with your own expert knowledge to kind of get the best of both worlds, the better in the long run you're going to be. so, you know, I really don't think it depends on the sport, but like baseball has been the frontier of this for a while. Partly is because it's

It's it's sliced into so many easy ways to kind of get data splits and things like that, that it makes sense that that was the first sport. But I think basketball is, one of the next ones just because you can boil a game down to single possessions at a time. And you can say what happened on this possession. And, and so in that sense, it's a lot easier than say a sport like soccer where, you know, you only have a couple of goals a game and you have a continuous play happening for, you know, four or five minutes at a time. So I think it makes sense that basketball is kind of the second sport, at least in America to be.

really embracing the analytics movement. And I think especially within the college realm, I find it so fascinating because when we get to the transfer portal, know, guy, the way that teams used to recruit was you would be looking at a guy in high school, you'd watch him on film, you'd go to his games for several years, you develop a relationship. And by the time that you're ready to sign him, you, know pretty well how good he is, at least as a high school player. Well, now in college, you have to make evaluations on players in a matter of

couple of weeks, a week, several days, depending on when they enter the portal. That's just not a lot of enough time to develop a relationship and watch all the films. So using a data to help you at least filter down your tool of pool of candidates and saying, is this the kind of guy we want or not is a real game changer. And that's why so many coaches are using my website and other tools as well to target guys in the portal and make quick evaluations and find guys who fit specifically what they're looking for.

Corry (Silk) (33:44.042) What, are you a math major? Like what led you to this? I'm just curious, I'm nerding out a little bit now, man. Like how'd you get here?

Dan Thompson (33:49.659) Ha

Evan Miyakawa (33:51.094) I, yeah.

Jordan Scarlett (33:51.908) man.

Corry (Silk) (33:54.578) Okay, okay. That makes sense.

Evan Miyakawa (33:54.765) I have my PhD in statistics. Yeah, yeah. But I've always loved sports from a young age and applying math always made the most sense to me in sports because there's just so much going on that I always was really eager to apply those numbers and probabilities and things like that to sports. so it's really fun to be able to apply it in this way because I think a lot of people get it. A lot of people, even if you're not a math person, you can kind of understand why it's important in sports. And so I think it's really fun there.

Corry (Silk) (34:22.602) Bye.

De La Torre (34:24.774) But triangulating Johnny Broom's location is more geometry or is that? Listen, we're trying different angles here.

Dan Thompson (34:29.528) Yeah.

Evan Miyakawa (34:32.249) I'm not picking up what you're putting down, sorry.

Corry (Silk) (34:32.893) Second try, it still didn't work.

Dan Thompson (34:33.506) Yeah

Dan Thompson (34:37.582) All right guys, we're gonna let you go. Evan, why don't you plug yourself a little bit, your website where they can follow you on X and maybe we really appreciate it on kind of last minute here.

Evan Miyakawa (34:50.649) Yeah, so Evanmia.com is where you can find all the stuff. There's really everything for no matter what level of fan you are, if you're a casual fan or a very analytical nerdy person like me, there's a lot of stuff there. Player ratings, team ratings, game predictions, lineup analysis, transfer portal stuff, keys to victory, player skill grades, like literally everything. And you can also find links to all my other social media platforms on there. Do a lot of stuff on Twitter, but I'm on Instagram and...

and TikTok and that sort of thing. So you can find links to all that stuff on evanmia.com.

Dan Thompson (35:24.022) Awesome, and we really appreciate your time this evening and maybe we'll talk to you around March Madness time. Awesome, thank you.

Evan Miyakawa (35:31.045) Sounds good, thank you guys.

Jordan Scarlett (35:32.484) Take care brother.

De La Torre (35:32.582) Thanks, Sam.

He wouldn't bite.

Corry (Silk) (35:36.106) You got to throw better bait out there too, my brother.

Dan Thompson (35:37.174) He did not bite. I'm happy for him.

De La Torre (35:40.688) Hmm. That's a great joke. It's great joke.

Jordan Scarlett (35:43.364) you

Dan Thompson (35:43.678) was let's let's do a couple quick ad reads let's get some bills paid we got a lot to talk about in the football side of things

first go visit our friends over at homefieldapparel.com use promo code STATEMINGALE if you're looking for vintage t-shirts, three-quarter sleeve shirts, they've got a few of those, they've got some track and field stuff, football, baseball, volleyball, which you gotta talk about Mary Watts, forgot to write that down. Go visit homefieldapparel.com, use promo code STATEMINGALE, get 15 % off of your order, they do have that really cool baseball pullover that Nick always is.

shoving in your face coming back in just a couple of weeks. So go visit homefieldapparel.com use promo code STADIUMANDGALE all one word at checkout. Beautiful Nick.

De La Torre (36:31.506) Jordan's shoulders might not fit into this.

Jordan Scarlett (36:33.614) Just chill.

Dan Thompson (36:35.554) Well, we don't, we didn't get free ones. So, home for the peril.com promo code stadium and Gale. All right. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. All right. So we've got a lot to talk about. lot of hires, some departures. I'm going to go kind of in chronological order here, cause I think that that makes the most sense. the Gators did announce the hiring of Robert Bala.

He will be the inside linebackers coach for the Florida Gators. He is joining UF from the University of Washington where he was last season. He was at the University of Alabama the season before he was hired into the role that Austin Armstrong was hired before he joined the University of Florida. Previously that he was at Liberty as an analyst and then he was the defensive coordinator at Southern Utah. He was in competition. We talked about it on this show with Tim Skipper.

So what do you guys thought?

De La Torre (37:35.378) I have a correction for myself from last week probably, maybe the week before. The NCAA on a tremendous losing streak in court is not enforcing the 10 on field assistance. You still have to designate 10 coaches to recruit to go out on the road. But thousands of coaches.

Corry (Silk) (37:47.103) Yeah.

Corry (Silk) (38:01.631) You

De La Torre (38:05.17) thousands of on field coaches. So, Dan was right. Dan can't speak right now.

Corry (Silk) (38:06.59) Go ahead, Dan, what you got,

Corry (Silk) (38:11.292) Yeah, he's just, he's trying to find the button. He's trying to find the button.

Jordan Scarlett (38:14.923) Hahaha

Dan Thompson (38:18.598) Just trying to find the button. If you guys listen to the show, you would know that I did say that. I do accept your apology, Nick. I think it means a lot to me. I think it means a lot to our listeners that we get information correct on the show and us debating live, maybe without full information doesn't help the listener. But when you come back the next week and remind them.

De La Torre (38:19.062) big listen credit credit to me for being the bigger man than dan

Corry (Silk) (38:21.3) Yeah.

Jordan Scarlett (38:21.816) Good one.

Dan Thompson (38:45.216) I think it means a lot to the show and most importantly to the listeners. So thank you for doing that. Integrity. So Robert Bala, Nick, why don't you start us off then because yeah, just as a token of my appreciation.

Corry (Silk) (38:46.538) Alright, potato man.

De La Torre (38:50.587) Integrity.

Corry (Silk) (39:00.362) This guy, man.

De La Torre (39:04.562) Thank you. Yeah, I think we were the first people to put the news out. But experience in Alabama, experience at Washington, and another CoDC. I think we're several CoDC titles now. But inside linebackers coach, think the move here, now you have a coach for inside linebackers, you have a coach for outside linebackers, and Mike P.

You have a cornerbacks coach in Will Harris. You've got your defensive line coach. You've got a safeties coach in Sunsiri, Italian. I think this allows Ron Roberts to do probably what a lot of people in Gator Nation want Billy to do, which is kind of just be a CEO. He doesn't have to work strictly with the inside linebackers. Ron can kind of float around during practice, see a little bit of what's happening with everyone.

But yeah, that's I think Robert Bowles, a young coach, experienced in the SEC and a good hire.

Corry (Silk) (40:11.775) No doubt.

Dan Thompson (40:14.286) Yeah, definitely a young coach. Interesting background. Just want to read through this a little bit. Played football at Southern Utah. Graduated in 2008, so that puts him at what, about 40 years old right now. Coached at Snow College. Never heard of Snow College. It's a small school in Utah. Then he went to Palomar, which is a school in the San Diego area. He actually started his career, football career playing there.

And then he was an intern with the Oakland Raiders. And then he went to the Ottawa, Arizona Spirit, which is in the NAIA. And then from there went back to Southern Utah for three years to Liberty, to Alabama, to Washington, to Florida. So definitely an interesting background. I don't know enough about him. I do know that he's got a good reputation. I do know that he is.

somebody that is known as a tenacious recruiter, but of the people that I've talked to, I just don't know if I know enough to give a real take on the take.

Corry (Silk) (41:23.444) Yeah, I think it was a good take just from, I did some more research. I don't act like I know all of these guys when they make like some people try to act like they know everybody in the coaching role. I do not, I prefer Tim Skipper for a few different reasons. Experience is one, I think the staff is lacking some experience. So I wanted somebody with, you know, that could add some years to the sideline. And also knew the lay of the land, Florida recruiting.

Dan Thompson (41:32.823) Yeah.

Corry (Silk) (41:51.67) Tim brought a lot of that to the table. We all kind of know him from previous regime, right? But after looking at the ball a higher and it's, it's totality, Bama wanted to keep him when they made the change from saving. the coach that was coming over from Washington was already a linebacker coach. So they didn't retain him at Alabama. just looking at some of the Washington message boards, some people want him as DC.

Dan Thompson (41:59.491) Mm-hmm.

Dan Thompson (42:15.235) Mm-hmm.

Corry (Silk) (42:19.406) it was considering him in that fashion. So just, you know, doing some research and just searching around, like he has a good football reputation. So I don't think it's a bad hire. I just don't think it's like, from my opinion, what we was lacking. I think our sidelines is lacking experience. And I was hoping that we would get some experience in the spot, but I think it's a solid hire.

Jordan Scarlett (42:44.3) Yeah, I think it's a pretty solid hard to trust in a coach on this one. Hopefully he doesn't have a lot of experience, but let's just hope he brings a lot of high energy. Seems like a young guy ready to get the guys going on defense. That's something you really kind of need that energy boost, especially if you plan to toughen position like linebacker. So I'm all on board with it, man. Hopefully he has a lot of juice and a lot of energy to get these guys going. The linebacker room improved week after week last year, so hopefully he knows that he has to come in here and basically keep it

how I was already rolling, if not make it better.

Dan Thompson (43:16.962) Yeah, I mean, and has some incredible talent in the linebacker room this year. So he's going to have a full cupboard, I would think, to be able to make an impact or to see the impact that he has on the field. Definitely a kind of a meteoric rise going from an NAIA school to back to Southern Utah, which is your alma mater, and then to Liberty.

Corry (Silk) (43:17.866) 100%.

Jordan Scarlett (43:21.835) sure.

Dan Thompson (43:43.412) Then to being an analyst at Liberty, to linebackers coach Alabama, to linebackers coach at Washington, which had just played in the national championship to a linebacker coach at Florida is definitely a heck of a rise over the last few years. And it probably says a lot about him and his work ethic and what he's been able to, to learn and accomplish in his career. So we welcome coach Bala to the unlimited coaching staff that Florida.

Corry (Silk) (44:09.872) Yeah

Jordan Scarlett (44:12.462) you

Dan Thompson (44:13.23) I will have, I'm curious to see if he'll be one of the coaches designated for recruiting. I am curious to see who those 10 are, right? I don't know if we'll ever find out. I think we'll be able to piece them together during discussions and conversations, but I'd be curious to see if he's gonna be one of those names that will be out recruiting.

Corry (Silk) (44:29.288) Yeah, I think that's gonna be a fairly early question once this thing's kind of settled in. I think spring football, somebody's gonna ask that question in some type of capacity. I think we'll get it laid out to us, like who those recruiting coaches, because we're gonna wanna know who to hold accountable before they even get on the trail, right? Yeah. But yeah, I think it's interesting to see how it all plays out. Yeah.

Dan Thompson (44:49.206) Right, yeah, yeah, Gotta know who to fire the tweets off to, you know?

De La Torre (44:56.38) Top of the list. Top of the list.

Corry (Silk) (44:57.0) Having two linebacker coaches is something different. Do we know if Peterson has signed his extension?

De La Torre (45:15.642) whether the contracts are signed or not, agreements are in place.

Dan Thompson (45:24.27) Okay, yeah, he's still working that that every other week check is still still hitting the bank account or every the first and the 15th whatever USP schedule with so

De La Torre (45:25.682) Purr-purbily napier.

Corry (Silk) (45:34.282) It sounds like they got a deal counter in place. It's just not like signed. it's on the horizon.

De La Torre (45:40.882) Yeah, yeah, yeah, like that's what I was saying about January 31st. People thought like, ah, public execution day. And I was like, no, even if, hoping or expecting, I don't know what it was. But yeah, Billy said that on signing day. He was asked about it he said, yeah, our entire staff is intact. He said, we will be looking to continue to add that our staff is intact.

Corry (Silk) (45:47.786) That's what we were hoping for.

Corry (Silk) (45:52.714) A little bit of both.

Dan Thompson (46:08.642) Yeah, and I would not be surprised if there's another name or two added in the next... it's February 10th, so I'm going to say by February 28th.

De La Torre (46:22.908) February 29th.

Dan Thompson (46:24.91) We're not having one of those this year. Speaking of numbers, I do want to shout out Anthony Beckett, a super chat. We don't get super chats in our live stream chat here on this new platform, so I missed it. So statistics is the absolute worst class ever I've ever taken. I damn sure don't recommend it at all. I remember taking it in college as my professor's first year in America from Turkey, and I don't think he was hired for his teaching ability. I think he was hired for his...

Corry (Silk) (46:39.092) Yeah.

De La Torre (46:39.602) we gotta go back.

Corry (Silk) (46:50.469) Yeah

Dan Thompson (46:54.03) research ability. So I'll never forget that class. But Anthony Beck, we appreciate you. While we're here, hit the like button, hit the retweet button, hit the share button, whatever it might be, want to get out to as many people as possible here, especially as we start to break down some of these additional hires. Brandon, yes, shout out to Ernest Graham for being named head coach at Santa Fe High School in Alachua. Looking good, looking mean, looking strong. So

We talked about Gerald Chapman's extension last week, right?

Gerald Chapman was extended. know we talked about him not getting the Bears job, but he was extended and I would not be surprised if there's another extension announced here very soon.

De La Torre (47:31.921) Leave some.

Corry (Silk) (47:38.324) thought yeah, think the the analysis chat mean extension, right?

Dan Thompson (47:39.363) potentially.

Dan Thompson (47:44.066) Yeah, yeah, no, they did. I just didn't know if we had talked about it on last week's show.

Corry (Silk) (47:45.112) Yeah.

De La Torre (47:48.134) I'd like to announce that Dan has been extended by Stacey McGill. HR let me know earlier this week.

Dan Thompson (47:53.506) Hell yeah. Shout out to HR. I'm usually HR. So whoever my boss in HR, I appreciate them reaching out to you, Nick. Let's see. So again, going chronologically, Coach Rasul, was a cornerbacks quality control coach, big on Twitter, a fan of the show. I know that did announce that he's taken a job with the Las Vegas Raiders. So he will be departing or has already departed. So we certainly wish.

Jordan Scarlett (47:54.884) you

Corry (Silk) (47:55.53) Yeah, that's crazy.

De La Torre (47:57.007) you

going around you.

Dan Thompson (48:22.604) him well in his next venture. Certainly get the opportunity to coach in the NFL is a dream for a lot of people. And so congratulations to Coach Rasul.

Corry (Silk) (48:32.394) Yeah. Uh, doesn't seem like much because he wasn't the own field coach, but he was an important guy. He's always in a lot of clips with Crow Money and some of these dudes on off the field, uh, working on their game and the IPF. So that stuff you see on social media is a lot of him doing, um, very respected in that locker room. Him and Will Harris was a nice, uh, dual punch man. So, um, hate to see him go, you know, hopefully we got some other DB guys around the building that we can give a raise.

Dan Thompson (48:53.102) you

Corry (Silk) (49:00.938) But would have liked to kept him to be honest with you. Being that these staffs have unlimited, like you can go anywhere with this. That's one guy I would have liked for them to, you know, put some resources to keep him around. I think he's very valuable, but off to the NFL. to him for sure.

Dan Thompson (49:22.222) Yeah, absolutely. All right. Then the Gators announced today the addition of Nick Polk, who is going to be the football general manager now. Find it semantically funny because we were told there will be no GM because there is somebody in the GM role already. And that's Jacob LaFrance. So what do they do? So you see the word football and then they're like,

Here's our football GM, not to be confused with our general manager. So Nick Polk is coming to the Gators long illustrious career with the Atlanta Falcons, where he served as the director of football administration and the director of football operations, which included salary cap, draft negotiation, contract proposal, player contracts, coaches contracts, cross checking scouting assignments.

trade and trade value analysis, CBA compliance and the like. After he was with the Falcons, he most recently served at Athletes First, which is one of the largest sports agencies in football, where he was an advisor, contract negotiator, search firm relations and professional development advisor. So Nick Polk is coming to the show, or coming to the program. If you listen to this show, Nick Polk was a name that I said.

Corry (Silk) (50:40.435) Whoa.

Corry (Silk) (50:47.016) I thought he was coming on the show. I thought you had him in the green room. you said coming to the show, man. You got me excited.

Dan Thompson (50:48.472) Be on the lookout for.

Dan Thompson (50:53.236) No, no, no, no, Florida doesn't want there anybody talking to the media.

Yeah. Dodson Nick Polk.

Corry (Silk) (51:01.81) I don't know front office like talent to be honest with you, right? So I Google, find out his resume. When we first started this search, I said, I wanted somebody with NFL experience, general manager, numbers, cap, all of that stuff, man. He meets the criteria of what I wanted. So I'm cool on the higher. I don't have any bad or good opinions about it. I just think we needed somebody with NFL experience and not some amateur from Louisiana that.

Dan Thompson (51:06.999) Of course, yeah.

Corry (Silk) (51:31.378) has never done this before.

Jordan Scarlett (51:38.084) Yeah, I like the high as well, man. I agree with Corey on that one. I'm not too familiar with the front office stuff that much either, but if you come in front of NFL, he definitely knows some things and he can definitely put us in the right direction. So I ain't mad at the high.

Dan Thompson (51:53.614) Yeah, I think the athletes first thing is definitely something worth noting, being able to be on both sides of contract negotiation and being able to understand what bargaining chips play or agents are going to bring to the table. The relationships that you probably already have being in the industry now, especially as college and I'll moves very heavily towards agents and being able to negotiate those contracts and making sure that it's a fair deal for all parties involved. Nick, are you allowed to have an opinion on this?

Corry (Silk) (52:06.505) Right.

De La Torre (52:25.392) Yeah, I think the way the probably give a little more light to it too. The way that we're moving and Billy's talked about this. A lot of coaches are doing it. You're seeing vice president of football operations, general manager, with revenue share coming schools can pay the athletes. They can help market the athletes. I think you need somebody from an NFL system as the college game gets more and more similar to it.

Dan Thompson (52:29.646) No, okay.

De La Torre (52:54.076) from a paying the athlete standpoint, you're gonna need somebody to, okay, what's our NIL budget this year? What is like an NFL roster, an NFL team will say, hey, we're allotting X amount of dollars for the quarterback room. Are we over budget? Are we under budget? Here's how we're making these puzzle pieces fit. And then you might need somebody. So I think the other guy they hired who you'll get to.

Benjamin Ellsner is probably more of the number cruncher while Nick Polk is overseeing what they want to be a three person department. And then think you have another person in that department who is probably...

the person who is finding out the real number because numbers are thrown around by agents, numbers are thrown around here and there, and then you probably have some sort of think tank there to be like, hey, listen, do we want to go over budget because we have a chance to get this person, but getting this person will put us over budget at this position. Then you start to have some of those conversations or things like that, but getting somebody with 18 years of experience,

negotiating with players, negotiating with agents, I think is important, not just for Florida, but probably any serious Division I football program, Power II program. Power IV is Power II.

Dan Thompson (54:18.094) And then finally, Nick, you mentioned it. I also see your comment, Anthony, that Jordan Harold is going to be leaving Florida. So we're gonna do a little research on that and we'll come back. So the addition, like Nick mentioned, Ben Elsner comes to the University of Florida as formerly the Director of Football Strategy and Chief of Staff for the 33rd team. If you're not familiar with 33rd team,

I, it is a website that does a ton of football analysis and very similar to Evan Mike, how that was on earlier, a lot of very deep dives into, performance, mock drafts, player projection, that kind of stuff. So he comes from there, still relatively young in his career started, graduated from university of Massachusetts back in just 2021. So has spent the last nearly four years.

with a 33rd team and you know, obviously somebody that was very well respected 33rd team unless you're in the analytics space, you might not be familiar, but that is definitely the probably the number one source for analytics in the NFL space. So definitely somebody that's still very much on the come up in their career. So he's going to be joining the staff as the director of football strategy at the University of Florida. So we'll, we'll probably learn a little bit more.

about what those roles look like over the next few months, you can read the press release and you can read the quotes. but, but probably still some undefined, roles and positions there. Not undefined, but, more, we will find more scope out later. Maybe.

Corry (Silk) (56:06.206) Very nice.

Dan Thompson (56:09.824) Left your speech. That's very good. All right. Let's get a quick ad read for our friends over at Game Time Sidekicks. If you are looking for the best cups that you can possibly imagine, keep your hot drinks hot or your cold drinks cold. Go visit GameTimeSidekicks.com. Use promo code STADIUM15. Bunch of products for the University of Florida. A lot of other products for other schools as well. If you are doing any shopping. So again, GameTimeSidekicks.com promo code STADIUM.

15.

Jordan, I know you're there. You're at the Super Bowl. Want to give a quick shout out to Chauncey Gardner Johnson and Fred Johnson, who are Super Bowl champions, as well as, yeah, as well as executive vice president, Howie Roseman, who is a University of Florida graduate, as well for winning that Super Bowl. All right. Mary Wise has announced her departure.

Corry (Silk) (56:46.022) Royal Palm baby, 561, we out here. Inside the Fred, man, like the GOAT.

Dan Thompson (57:08.375) from the University of Florida as she heads into retirement. At the time of her retirement and alumnus of this show or alumna of the show, she ended her career with 1,068 career victories, which is the fourth most in division one history. She was up until the other day, the only coach currently coaching in volleyball with 1,000 or more career victories. She is tied for...

the highest active division one coaching winning percentage, which is a point eight, three, four. That is eighth all time in NCAA history. Eight NCAA final fours, 83 NCAA tournament victories, 30 regional semi-final appearances, 25 SEC championships and

15 SEC Coach of the Year awards, 13 undefeated SEC seasons, and three time AVCA Division I National Coach of the Year. She coached 142 All-Americans, so, or All-American honors. So congratulations on your retirement, Mary Wise. All right, let's get into recruiting. The Gators did announce,

The addition of two players in the recruiting class on Wednesday, one is a long snapper and then the other is Onus Conanberry. He was a three star cornerback or four star, depending on what service you're looking at, that he is going to be joining the program. A native of London, England had previously been committed to the University of Tennessee for a very long time, decommitted from Tennessee.

Committed to Florida and then signed on Wednesday. Gentlemen, your thoughts on Onus Conanberry.

Corry (Silk) (59:06.73) Good get, they've been chasing this kid for a while. I gave up on him. You he was supposed to go signing day. They, pushed it back early signing day. He's supposed to go. He pushed it back to, yeah. It about time signing day came up, but after early signing day, I was just like, is this kid good enough to follow all the way to February? I was kind of maxed out energy wise with recruiting. So I just kind of gave up on it. Staff finished the deal.

De La Torre (59:12.27) Mm.

Dan Thompson (59:15.054) Okay.

De La Torre (59:17.778) You know, this was a bad, badly kept secret, I think, by this point, or by the time science began.

Corry (Silk) (59:35.698) He had his official visit last month, you know, and it was good smoke coming from that. Rangy kid, you know, long. I didn't know he was from out of the country. So NIL works a little bit different for those guys. So I don't think it just came down to like NIL books, like your traditional or your average recruiting these days, but old school, selling your program, selling the future of the, you know, the school, everything else. Shy to Will Harris.

Probably the best recruiter on the team. His room is absolutely loaded.

Dan Thompson (01:00:14.126) Absolutely. And I did miss say his name. So I apologize. Otis Conan Banny. Sorry.

De La Torre (01:00:25.53) International gaugers. Got a second one from England.

Corry (Silk) (01:00:26.698) across the time.

Dan Thompson (01:00:27.15) International Gators. Have they gotten an international kid in every Billy Napier class?

Jordan Scarlett (01:00:27.298) Okay.

De La Torre (01:00:33.106) I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm looking forward to, yeah, Enoch, Jason Zandamella, Jason Zandamella, who's originally from Nigeria.

Dan Thompson (01:00:34.382) because we got Enoch last year.

Corry (Silk) (01:00:36.072) And the boys got to crack the depth chart. We got to stop going over there.

Jordan Scarlett (01:00:41.476) It's just a good story sometimes man, it's good to have them kind of guys on your team. Keep the headlines popping.

Corry (Silk) (01:00:48.265) Yeah, yeah, yeah.

De La Torre (01:00:50.834) Where is he from? Where is Zanamel originally from?

Dan Thompson (01:00:55.443) and I know, Enoch was from Germany, believe. Noel Portnagy.

De La Torre (01:01:02.584) No, no, no. Enoch is... Noelle Portian. Portiagin, excuse me. Excuse me, I interviewed him for Florida Victorious and got it right. And he was surprised. Portiagin.

Dan Thompson (01:01:12.439) Nice.

Did you ask chat GPT? It's okay if you did.

Jordan Scarlett (01:01:17.567) Shit.

De La Torre (01:01:18.87) No, no, no, I didn't. I went and listened to a different interview and that person, instead of trying, just asked him to say it. So I just copied. But that's, my due diligence to get it right.

Dan Thompson (01:01:29.186) That's what I do when I don't know somebody's name and I'm trying to introduce them to somebody. I'll just be like, this is my friend James. And then they'll put their hand out and they'll respond. And it's like, yeah, that their name is Robert. All the strict in the book.

Corry (Silk) (01:01:39.848) Yeah, it is the oldest. It is the oldest trick.

Jordan Scarlett (01:01:40.408) Okay.

De La Torre (01:01:40.962) That's oldest trick in the book. I'm so bad with names. Wife's there with me. Hey, this is my wife Lauren. And get them to say their name, beautiful.

Corry (Silk) (01:01:46.654) That'd be so obvious though man. Like this guy don't really know me.

Jordan Scarlett (01:01:48.394) And your name is? You alright?

Dan Thompson (01:01:51.63) You know, I didn't know Jeremy Crosshaw was from a place called Emu Plains.

De La Torre (01:01:56.344) You haven't read anything I've written or tweeted about him in the last five years, because Emu Plains prominently featured.

Jordan Scarlett (01:01:56.437) What?

Dan Thompson (01:02:04.448) Yeah, I probably didn't do much reading. I mean, you are on mute.

Corry (Silk) (01:02:06.674) Yeah.

De La Torre (01:02:07.6) Hahaha!

That was, you were like, I'm not, I'm not on mute. You can hear me?

Dan Thompson (01:02:15.436) What we have a player, Ethan Wilson shot at Ethan Wilson. he's graduated, but he's from Coral Springs. I'm looking at our list. Yeah. You know, it's Coral Springs charter. course, eating on a Coral Springs high school. haven't produced D1 athlete in years. So yeah, Noel is from Germany.

Corry (Silk) (01:02:20.242) on the football team.

Dan Thompson (01:02:34.25) Enoch is from Manchester, England.

So.

Jordan Scarlett (01:02:39.554) We international for real, huh?

Corry (Silk) (01:02:39.806) Yeah, manny was gonna have to eventually like I said, crack depth chart bro.

Dan Thompson (01:02:41.902) Yeah, International Gators.

De La Torre (01:02:42.193) Mm-hmm.

Jordan Scarlett (01:02:47.042) Yeah

De La Torre (01:02:47.315) Every year we're getting the number one player in the country.

Corry (Silk) (01:02:48.51) They free. So we might want to stay in that bag, man. You know, you gotta get the NIL bucks don't slap the same. How does it work Nick? Do you know how NIL work in those countries? I know they can't get technically get NIL, but how does that work? Okay. Educate me.

Dan Thompson (01:02:51.054) Absolutely.

Jordan Scarlett (01:02:53.958) Yeah

De La Torre (01:03:05.626) No, they can get NAL. So when you are an international student, when you're an international student and you come to America for college, you get a student visa. So Jeremy Croshaw, for instance, he was a Florida victorious athlete signed with us. We couldn't do promotional stuff with him when he was here. So when Jeremy went back to Australia, he would film stuff and we could pay him when he was back home. But if you are

Corry (Silk) (01:03:15.412) Mm-hmm.

Corry (Silk) (01:03:30.113) De La Torre (01:03:33.714) Profiting off of your name, image, and likeness, you're not using your student visa for what it was issued for so they could revoke your student visa. So when we have international athletes, we have to wait until they go home. We just did a bunch of stuff with Brendan Lawson, who is from Toronto, and a freshman baseball player who's gonna start this year as a freshman. He had to do all of his stuff when he was back home because we can't have them do their...

Corry (Silk) (01:03:39.166) Cool. Okay. Got you.

De La Torre (01:04:02.722) actionable on their contract while they're here on a student visa.

Corry (Silk) (01:04:03.262) That's makes it hard to do marketing deals.

De La Torre (01:04:09.778) Yes. Yeah, think Trasha signed over his rights to like his name, image and likeness to alma mater when they made like the Punisher People 2 shirt with the mustache and they had a shirt with him. And I think what happens is they are able to sell whatever you've agreed to with him whenever he goes back home, they're able to pay him out on what his portion of it was.

Corry (Silk) (01:04:22.25) Hmm.

Dan Thompson (01:04:24.526) Mmm.

Dan Thompson (01:04:41.022) so I just kind of keep it in a trust, if you will.

De La Torre (01:04:44.988) Sort of. Probably under the mattress, not really in a truss.

Dan Thompson (01:04:47.63) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I got that. Accrues some interest. Don't pay the interest. Yeah. I get it. And Hey, it's great. Great strategy. So, so that's where they're at Florida finished seventh in recruiting rankings overall, depending, I guess, on where you, where you look for the class of 2024, I think solid, very solid.

Corry (Silk) (01:04:52.714) You

De La Torre (01:04:55.409) May as well shave you.

Corry (Silk) (01:05:10.536) Yeah, very good class. mean, it's not a huge difference between five and 10 is like you're getting into like very small numbers there, man. So we already had a good class. They finished up even stronger than number seven. Talent acquisition is not the problem in Gainesville. So everything is everything. We want to up and up.

Dan Thompson (01:05:13.998) 2025.

Dan Thompson (01:05:30.242) Everything is everything. All right. And then finally, let's get into some over under numbers. Las Vegas is starting to put out some numbers for the Florida Gators over under today came out six and a half win total for the Florida Gators. You buying over six and a half or you selling under six and a half.

Corry (Silk) (01:05:52.712) I'm going to the playoffs. Yeah.

Jordan Scarlett (01:05:54.756) I'm climbing the ladder to I'm climbing the ladder to eight and taking the eight. Give me all the juice. Yeah, that's six and a half is a breeze. I had to climb up a little bit, make it a challenge.

Corry (Silk) (01:05:58.26) Let's go.

I'm definitely over that six and a half, bruh.

Dan Thompson (01:06:01.582) 10 to 8, okay.

Corry (Silk) (01:06:13.555) No, you're supposed to be Nick.

De La Torre (01:06:13.742) supposed to be positive or negative? Okay. I'm taking the over and I'm just talking myself into nine.

Jordan Scarlett (01:06:16.812) You can be whoever you want to

Corry (Silk) (01:06:17.169) Hahaha!

Dan Thompson (01:06:17.751) Yeah.

Jordan Scarlett (01:06:23.684) You feel me? I got lag where he taking snaps. I don't know if y'all forgot that or not. In a year two running back, got, Yeah, he definitely did. That was pure jokes on his end. It's like.

Dan Thompson (01:06:24.47) Nine.

Corry (Silk) (01:06:26.024) Yeah, I'm 10 wins in the playoffs, dawg. I ain't gonna lie to y'all.

De La Torre (01:06:29.638) Mmm. Did the Charlotte quarterback forgot about it for a minute, but he figured it out in the end.

Corry (Silk) (01:06:35.082) That was crazy that was crazy

De La Torre (01:06:40.45) Here on FSU day National highly regarded FSU day as we sit here in February. I can talk myself into nine

Dan Thompson (01:06:51.214) I don't know if I've ever thought I'd hear those words uttered out of your mouth.

Corry (Silk) (01:06:54.014) You talking about, I don't like when they set the over under act.

De La Torre (01:06:58.544) I told Dan, I told Dan a month ago, this is a playoff team.

Corry (Silk) (01:07:00.904) Yeah, what they set the number at is a different conversation. Like, it could be a combination of things. It could be the schedule, you know, how people see the schedule, I don't think is a world beater this year. It's a lot of turnover at quarterback roster wise. I think we have the most returning like starters and a lot of different notes in those matchups. But I think it's interesting for them to have it at six and a half, you know, just considering what Latway is, he's in the Heisman odds as well.

in Vegas. So people are thinking highly of this team. turn on like most writers, most podcasters are putting Florida in the playoffs. So the over under to be at six and a half definitely caught me by surprise.

Dan Thompson (01:07:46.902) Yeah, I think anything less than eight is a severe disappointment for this team.

Jordan Scarlett (01:07:52.132) For sure. That's all I to say.

Dan Thompson (01:07:53.962) especially with the amount that other teams are replacing and what Florida is bringing back in the positions that they're bringing back. think anything less than he wins is a massive disappointment.

Corry (Silk) (01:08:03.738) eight wins would, eight wins is disappointment, man. I think we got to make the playoffs with this team, you know. Just from a couple of different standpoints, I think definitely out of the two years, you want to make it at least one, but just looking at the landscape of college football, the talent that's on the roster with a quarterback like this, and we haven't been aggressive in the portal because we think we got everything to make a run. So.

The way it's all lining up, the messaging that you're sending to the fan base is we're suited and ready to go. We built this thing the right way. We don't need a whole lot out of the portal because we've been building this thing from the ground up. So yeah, I think it's a playoff or bust type situation, man. It's going to be hard for me to be sold on the future of Florida anymore. It's already tough, but to be sold more, I need to see this team hit that next level. Like we hit eight wins this year and I thought we underachieved. We left some wins on the table.

when you go back and look at some of those games. So if this team this year was above eight wins in my mind, like next year's team need to be, you know, playoffs, top 12.

De La Torre (01:09:13.976) It I mean at LSU first week is tough. That's gonna be really tough game. They get enough smart back. You mentioned I think you're right about you look across the schedule. quarterbacks leaving and not to mention Florida gets theirs back like Miami. Did my hood of Miami get in the portal?

Dan Thompson (01:09:33.56) Carson Beck.

De La Torre (01:09:35.866) Okay, yeah, I'm fine with that. With the roster that Miami has instead of the roster Georgia has around him, fine with that. We'll see how his elbow is doing too by September 20th. Shout out to Frank Delatory, happy birthday. Get to spend that with my dad down there. But LIU, South Florida at LSU is tough. Like this is a little tough stretch here at LSU at Miami, Texas.

Dan Thompson (01:09:53.614) Thank you.

De La Torre (01:10:04.078) At Texas A will be tough. Georgia's tough, but like what will Ole Miss be? guess we'll get to see Austin Simmons. Kentucky, not gonna be very good. Tennessee, late. FSU's gonna be in shambles.

Dan Thompson (01:10:19.31) All right.

Yeah, I mean, you...

De La Torre (01:10:24.398) I think we, like Corey mentioned it, part of the over under is set because of, look how hard the schedule is. And this year, I think the narrative will be, well, what do we see, especially if DJ comes out, especially if DJ comes back out in the spring and just balls out, looks fantastic all spring. The narrative this off season will change from,

Corry (Silk) (01:10:38.43) Watch that mic then. My bad.

De La Torre (01:10:54.224) last year's was, man, look at Florida's schedule, look how tough it is. those guys have to come play DJ Live with, they have to come play Florida. So I think we'll have a completely different narrative this off season than we did last season, despite the schedule being nearly identical.

Corry (Silk) (01:11:11.73) Yeah, I think just, I don't wanna hop on the schedule too much, but.

Like LSU, I've seen what Nussmeyer brings to the table. We do gotta go on the road and the environment is different, but I think catching LSU early is better than catching them late. Like from how many portal, how many portal players they're bringing in, they have really brand new team. Like they went very heavy in the portal. So we've usually in the past, like we called Jaden Daniels when he was...

De La Torre (01:11:35.398) Such a weird September.

Corry (Silk) (01:11:48.916) Heisman, Jaden, Daniels, right? Like it was later in the season, but when Florida State called him and some other teams called him early in the season, like it was taking some lumps. They didn't look as sharp. So usually we get LSU when they're really into a role. So to be able to catch them off guard and we have more returning players, I just think that's more in our favor in the early games, all the continuity. Like we're not really bringing in a whole lot of new faces. So that should put us at an advantage in my mind.

De La Torre (01:11:52.998) Yeah.

Corry (Silk) (01:12:18.248) And like I said, the Texas, they come into the swamp, but they got a new quarterback. He's very talented, but they got a new quarterback, a lot of turnover, two new coordinators. It's just a lot of continuity missing even with Texas. They lost both their OCD, CDB coach, a lot of things going on. I could go down the list, but like every team that we're playing, even Miami, is new coordinators, new quarterback. Like it's major moves being made. Just from a football.

From football laws, like we're set up continuity wise, staff wise, player wise, retention. We're set up to make a run and this should be a playoff team, man. We could just go from team to team. Everybody's got new quarterbacks, new coordinators, a lot of portal additions and we're not in that seat. So we'll see.

Dan Thompson (01:13:04.076) Yeah.

Dan Thompson (01:13:11.788) Yeah. And we'll, we'll do that as we get a little bit closer. But I think we even talked about that going in the last season too. And everybody talked about it being the hardest schedule ever in college football history. And we said, there's just a lot of schools that are replacing quarterbacks and replacing important folks. And I don't want to undersell how important it is that the Gators are returning four of their five offensive linemen that they're returning their starting quarterback, their entire running back room. Sure. They've got some.

some question marks at wide receiver, but you're getting a more mature linebacker group. Now I think you've got a great secondary group that hopefully can stay healthy. think that Florida is, it just seems like six and a half is, is very low. So you've got to capitalize. And I think you've got, I think to be honest, and this is my take is you've got a better chance this year than the year after just cause you're not replacing.

nearly your entire offensive line that you're gonna have to do going into 2026.

Dan Thompson (01:14:16.056) So I think we're on the over though, right?

Corry (Silk) (01:14:18.462) Yeah, 100%.

De La Torre (01:14:21.724) Hammering. Hammering the over.

Dan Thompson (01:14:23.532) Jordan, we got a question for you. What do you?

Jordan Scarlett (01:14:25.312) Yeah, yeah, I saw the question. I do think just off of seeing the flashes from that kid at the bowl game, I think that he may get some burn. Let's see how he does in training camp, to be honest with you. I like the kid, honestly. He's showing great burst of speed, just like he says. I think he's real tough in between the tackles, even though he's not big, big. He runs really tough.

So I like him personally, but well, if that running rec room is so stacked, a lot of fans aren't going to like to see Jayden Ball out the game. And you got a senior too who's trying to get some touches. It's definitely going to be a sticky room. But if he can find a way to get himself in there and training camp, man, make some plays, maybe catching the ball out the backfield or something, because I don't think either of them are really great catching the ball at the backfield. So if he can showcase that, I think that'd be his best way of kind of getting on the field, kind of getting that third down back area to where he can.

possibly pass protect and or just get you out in free release. So.

Corry (Silk) (01:15:25.054) Yeah, I was thinking that same thing, man. I think he's one of those guys that could get flexed out wide. I do think he's like, I think Ball is just explosive, strong, physical, got good vision, balance, all of that. But if he just goes like straight explosiveness, think Kaden Daniels is the most explosive and fastest kid out of his stance in that room. And I think the staff is also playing a little bit of chess with shoving him last year.

Cause all it takes is a couple of runs, which he started having towards the end of the year for teams to start hitting you in that portal. Hey, what's up, man? You shouldn't be sitting behind three, four guys. And you know, and I know he did get hit up.

Jordan Scarlett (01:16:00.095) Exactly.

I think that's gonna happen regardless, like I mentioned in the last show and the past couple shows when we have too much talent and like the game is just so grimy now dudes leaving out of nowhere. I just don't see it all our talent stand for the entire year and coming back for the returning year. Because it's just so many young guys as talented as far as the receivers and the running back goes, but we'll see who leaves.

Corry (Silk) (01:16:21.96) Yeah.

De La Torre (01:16:25.574) I appreciate Jordan's old man get off my lawn with this portal stuff, but I wanna know, 18 year old Jordan Scar, what were your numbers freshman year, Jordan?

Jordan Scarlett (01:16:33.431) What's up?

Jordan Scarlett (01:16:39.236) That Jordan would have definitely been out of Florida. could tell you that. I was not touching the field at all. I was very pissed off. I don't know if he told a story about it, but basically how I ended up getting a starting job. Cause it happened like my sophomore year, I think it was in training camp and Crunk was going in as a starter cause Crunk obviously played over me as like one of the back-ups to KT.

Corry (Silk) (01:16:39.852) Hahaha

De La Torre (01:16:45.138) I'm like, Jordan,

De La Torre (01:17:03.952) Mm-mm. Crazy.

Jordan Scarlett (01:17:06.148) Yeah, so I don't know how it happened. I think he called like a screen or something in training care practice and it was like a scrimmage. So he called a screen and somebody whacked him. I don't know who hit him, but he fumbled. And basically on top of the fumble, he's basically like, instead of like getting up to get the ball, he just kind of act like he was hurt. And then he kind of milked that injury all the way through training camp. So like the first week he tried to come back and say he was straight, but like.

By then it's over with, too deep in this room for you to be acting hurt for more than one day. So they made me the starter.

De La Torre (01:17:35.792) He pulled the 10-year NFL vet, being like, you know what, I'm gonna have surgery sometime in April. And that'll get me back for game three of the preseason, but missing all that OTAs and training camp.

Jordan Scarlett (01:17:39.192) Come on, he thinking he gonna have that job after he come back.

Jordan Scarlett (01:17:46.561) Bye!

Corry (Silk) (01:17:48.042) The smoke was already, he just faked that injury. Just, I ain't gonna say fake. I'm sorry. He didn't just.

Jordan Scarlett (01:17:49.124) you

Jordan Scarlett (01:17:56.644) Yeah, I believe it was fake. That's my dog. But I think it was more so the fumble that kind of made him be like, damn, if I look like I just got hurt, that fumble ain't as bad. But it really ain't matter. You sitting yourself out was doing yourself a disservice.

Corry (Silk) (01:17:56.906) Yeah.

Corry (Silk) (01:18:03.422) Right, right.

Corry (Silk) (01:18:08.628) I mean, you got to politic and nurse that thing a little bit differently because it was a lot of competition. he's like, you maybe I can, you can't lose your job to injury in most football situations, right?

De La Torre (01:18:17.232) Yeah, but listen, Jordan will tell you, they are quick to get you an MRI. Quick to get you a CT, quick to get you, you will have an x-ray before your pads are off. So you better start punching your calf if you say, I got a deep contusion. better, on the cart, just, we gotta make one if there isn't one there.

Jordan Scarlett (01:18:24.674) I'm trying to tell you.

Jordan Scarlett (01:18:28.898) You've tell the you're gonna have all that figured out.

Jordan Scarlett (01:18:37.668) You better do something. But yeah, For real, that's really what it was. But all in all, definitely wouldn't be there probably if I had the portal, how I had the portal, considering how many teams I left on the table to go there and ride the part of my freshman year. But it all happened for a reason,

De La Torre (01:18:43.228) They don't have an MRI for a bruised ego.

Dan Thompson (01:18:48.974) Shout out to Asa Turner.

Jordan Scarlett (01:19:01.518) Gator Nation is worldwide. Everywhere I go is gators, man. And I wouldn't take that back for the world. I'm almost glad I didn't have the transfer portal, because I wouldn't have all these connections to this day.

De La Torre (01:19:06.61) Mmm.

De La Torre (01:19:12.838) Guy just walked into sophomore year with a butt full of splinters riding the pine the whole year. I knew there was a reason why Jordan was so against the portal. It's because it wasn't open when he was there.

Jordan Scarlett (01:19:22.606) Yeah

Dan Thompson (01:19:26.616) Good one.

Jordan Scarlett (01:19:27.659) Right.

Corry (Silk) (01:19:27.946) You're right.

Dan Thompson (01:19:31.982) All right, guys, I think that brings us to the end of our show. Go visit alumni hall.com. well, let me get through this ad read then, All right, go visit alumni hall.com. Go visit them online. Use promo code, STATEMENGALE, all one word, you'll get 20, that's two zero percent off of your order through the month of February. So you've got 18 days left in February. So go visit.

De La Torre (01:19:35.706) Wait!

you

Dan Thompson (01:19:57.964) alumnihall.com, anything that you could want, Florida Gators related alumnihall.com, visit them online or on Archer Road. We gotta talk about the Super Bowl.

Corry (Silk) (01:20:07.817) Yeah

De La Torre (01:20:10.608) We do. Can't help to notice I put the connection together. Chiefs easy back to back Super Bowl wins. They get rid of Tommy Townsend and just get smashed. Missing link. Shout out to Tommy enjoying tax free Texas. No state income tax on that new contract. No, no, I don't know if that's the issue. That math ain't mathin'.

Dan Thompson (01:20:23.308) Yeah, it must have been it.

Dan Thompson (01:20:32.012) I thought it's because they got rid of Kedarius Tony.

Corry (Silk) (01:20:33.354) I see the math. I see the math in that one. Yeah. I mean, they could have used Tony.

Dan Thompson (01:20:38.348) You know what I mean? You know?

De La Torre (01:20:43.75) The number of they punty last night, they could have used a little more net average, I think.

Dan Thompson (01:20:47.958) Yeah, mean, if that's yes, I think the biggest thing that chiefs had wrong yesterday was their punting net average.

Jordan Scarlett (01:20:55.569) They had a whole lot more on than that.

Dan Thompson (01:20:58.402) Do we think that the first thing they talked about was their special teams EPA? Or no?

Corry (Silk) (01:21:03.698) I doubt it. They probably want to make sure Mr. Mahomes had an Uber.

Jordan Scarlett (01:21:04.642) Hell no.

De La Torre (01:21:06.138) No, but they should. But they should.

Jordan Scarlett (01:21:08.672) one of the last.

They had that boy rattled all night long.

De La Torre (01:21:13.426) Not much of the game. Corey, you were vocal, not calling it the Super Bowl, calling it the KDOT concert.

Corry (Silk) (01:21:18.654) Yeah.

I told y'all what it was yesterday, man. What is everybody talking about? Nobody's talking about the game. Everybody's just talking about the K-Dot concert, They just still having to play football around it.

De La Torre (01:21:32.326) Well.

So here's my take on why people didn't like it. I think the Super Bowl is very commercial. Super Bowl halftime shows, they're looking for someone who has bops, who's got club bangers, entertain me. Kendrick, that's not his career, that's not his motto, that's not what he's trying to do with music.

Corry (Silk) (01:21:53.64) Well, he, gotta tell you, because he does have those tracks. He just didn't use those.

De La Torre (01:22:01.518) I mean, he should have kicked the whole thing off with Mad City. you hit me with Mad City from the beginning and I'm in, I'm in. I enjoyed it. I also am not smart enough to pick up on all of I didn't know that Drake had been thirsting over SZA for the longest time since they broke up. And now she's rolling around on the X in the PlayStation logo. You've got Serena Williams, who doesn't mess with Drake either. She's Crip walking and the camera goes up to her.

Dan Thompson (01:22:18.946) Yeah.

Corry (Silk) (01:22:26.845) Larger Maddox.

Jordan Scarlett (01:22:27.748) There's a lot of messages in all of that.

Dan Thompson (01:22:29.494) Mm-hmm.

De La Torre (01:22:32.028) Kendrick's an onion, there's just layer after layer. You gotta have people peel it back for you. Kendrick, yeah, A minor. I was like, why is he rocking?

Corry (Silk) (01:22:32.778) Mm-hmm.

Dan Thompson (01:22:37.41) You the lower case A necklace? Yeah.

Corry (Silk) (01:22:38.581) no, that's actually from the logo, his new record label logo.

Jordan Scarlett (01:22:46.316) Yeah, I thought it was like an Amazon, maybe.

De La Torre (01:22:46.468) It's a lowercase a. Yeah. I never went into it thinking Kendrick was going to be commercially publicly applauded for this because it's not what old white men want to hear. I also thought. Yeah, the average just a. Novice music fan not going to be into it. They want to have Rihanna.

Corry (Silk) (01:23:00.874) or just middle, just the average person. he, go ahead. didn't mean to touch your arm.

De La Torre (01:23:16.658) Hey, I know all those songs. I thought they should have put Wayne and the whole cash money. Great to do it in New Orleans, but I get it Kendrick's having his moment. Also Jay-Z not a fan of Drake. Jay-Z picked the halftime show.

Dan Thompson (01:23:31.31) Yeah, and there's some connections, you know, with Wayne and Drake and all of that from way back when. So I like, I don't listen to nearly as much rap as I used to. You guys know that. I like Kendrick Lamar a lot. I think he is one of the most brilliant lyricists. And I think if you watched that concert with closed caption and you could read all the lyrics, I think people would be absolutely amazed. I didn't think.

De La Torre (01:23:37.478) But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. was not what I was scripted, but...

Dan Thompson (01:24:00.052) the show, I thought the show was very good for him and I think that there was a lot of messaging, I think that there was a lot of institutional things that he was going after. I didn't love some of the song selections, I didn't think, I just, I kind of thought that that would be a fantastic part of a concert, I just don't know if it.

Jordan Scarlett (01:24:14.341) Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree with that.

Dan Thompson (01:24:25.996) gave the energy or the vibe of a Super Bowl halftime show. And that's not to say that it's bad at all. I thought it was a fantastic performance. just, think what we're used to is very different. And I think that it unfortunately fell on, it fell a little flat with the general public. Now, do I think Kendrick Lamar cares? No, not at all. Do I think that Jay-Z cares? No. Do I think the NFL might wonder

Corry (Silk) (01:24:43.934) I don't care.

Jordan Scarlett (01:24:46.212) Not one bit.

De La Torre (01:24:46.768) Not bad. Not bad.

Dan Thompson (01:24:55.07) Did this fall further down than we thought it might? I don't know. he's not your Lil Wayne. He's not your Drake. He's not that kind of hype rapper, right? He is a lyricist. He is a storyteller. He's a communicator. I thought some of the audio was a little off, too, especially at the beginning. And that can happen. I just...

De La Torre (01:25:01.948) Kendrick's not, go ahead, sorry.

Dan Thompson (01:25:23.572) Certainly when you got towards the end, I thought, you he brought a lot of energy and what he did was an exceptional performance. just think it fell a little flat.

De La Torre (01:25:33.136) Yeah, Kendrick is for black culture. He's for his community in LA. He's for social reform, pointing a light on social issues. like, like Corey just said, laughing, like, do think he cares? No, he doesn't care what you thought. He was given a platform and he got his message across and his message is.

Dan Thompson (01:25:36.504) Right.

Dan Thompson (01:25:47.148) Right, No.

De La Torre (01:25:53.998) veiled and layered and the way that he does stuff. I mean, you could listen to a song 15 times and find something new that you didn't catch on a double, triple, quadruple entendre. I liked it. I don't know that the message is for me, for people like me, but I appreciate that he took that stage and stuck to it. And it wasn't like, listen, I just gotta go play.

Dan Thompson (01:26:04.226) Mm-hmm.

Dan Thompson (01:26:14.049) Absolutely.

De La Torre (01:26:18.074) all my number one hits, because Super Bowl, he's like, no, I'm gonna do the show that I wanna do. I'm gonna do the performance that I wanna do. That's dope.

Corry (Silk) (01:26:23.73) Yeah. You know, I think I thought it was, I'm a K-Dot fan, so I was going to enjoy it. Like it was going to be hard for me not to enjoy it, but I thought the messaging was a little bit for everybody, man. Just from a hip hop standpoint, I don't want to get too deep into all the artsy and messaging that he had going on. But I thought it was unique, just from a hip hop standpoint, the American flag and being Patriots.

Dan Thompson (01:26:24.832) I think it's awesome. Go ahead.

Corry (Silk) (01:26:49.63) patriotic, this is not a hip hop thing. Hip hop has been more anti-America than anything. So to see him embrace patriotism the way he did, of course there was some other messaging going on there, but I thought that was unique. The audio was a little off at times. There was sometimes if you weren't doing that show, you're not a Kendrick fan, you're not gonna know what's going on, but I know all the music. So it's a little bit different from me, but just listening back to it, like post Super Bowl, I could see how some people,

at some points of the show couldn't really get the audio. But I think art, music is art. know, the way I see it, like it's to be interpreted. There's surface level art. Like there's some people that are just painting, you know, clown faces and that's art and just random things. But then it's also, yeah, there's also Picasso and Van Gogh that are interpreted and broke down even like the matrix. There's surface level movies and then you have

De La Torre (01:27:38.46) Buddy, Rebecca Black had a song go number one about Friday.

Corry (Silk) (01:27:48.488) you know, some art and entertainment as layered. So it was a layered piece, man. And Super Bowl is usually sex, drugs, entertainment at halftime. So to make the average American sit and think for 12 minutes and kind of process it wasn't gonna come off as the popular thing. So.

Like the feedback is exactly what I thought it was gonna be this entire time. Like I've been saying since they announced it, like this is gonna be something totally different than Super Bowl has ever gotten, which it was. And the outcry, the outrage, I think it's even. It just depends on what your algorithms have. Like if you like it, then you probably gonna see a lot more positive things about it. If you don't, then you'll see more that on your feed. But I think it did what it was supposed to do. And that was just spark conversations, have people talking, but.

Dan Thompson (01:28:31.054) Yeah.

Corry (Silk) (01:28:41.372) It was American doubt. It was American flag out there. wasn't, you your kids didn't have to question sex and other different things going on. It was just music and art. And I thought that was a breath of fresh air where it wasn't any debauchery or degeneracy going on at halftime. I enjoyed it. It was my favorite one all the time. I'm just a K.Dot fan at the same time.

Dan Thompson (01:29:00.888) Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan Scarlett (01:29:04.462) Yeah, it was silent.

De La Torre (01:29:05.688) See, yeah, I appreciate the message, but most of my music choices are does it slap? Like when I played The Weatherman, the Irish sea shanty, slaps. Goes into the rotation. So I think my favorite halftime show would be the one they did in LA with like Snoop, Dre. That was just banger after banger after banger, which is what I'm looking for in a Super Bowl halftime show.

Corry (Silk) (01:29:13.672) Yeah.

Corry (Silk) (01:29:17.194) you

Corry (Silk) (01:29:20.809) Yeah.

Jordan Scarlett (01:29:23.097) Yeah, that was my top two. Yeah, it was going up.

Corry (Silk) (01:29:27.65) And most people go nostalgic, like most acts go to their hits. He decided just to keep it current.

De La Torre (01:29:33.328) Yes. Yeah.

Jordan Scarlett (01:29:34.616) That's what kind of disappointed me with him. Like you had so many more hits on the table that you just left. Like I.

De La Torre (01:29:37.436) Yeah.

Corry (Silk) (01:29:38.344) It was all current. was right now music. Yeah.

Jordan Scarlett (01:29:42.134) Yeah, like I get your, his current thing was doing his thing too, but not everyone was on his new album for real. Like, yes, it was a lot of messages in it, but I think he should have just got more of the public involved with just throwing some old hits. So even like bringing in other people, like I feel like that it was primarily just him. Yes, SZA was in there too. She had her little part, but that was only off his new album.

De La Torre (01:29:42.64) Yeah, is off his new album.

Corry (Silk) (01:30:03.998) Yeah, he had an agenda. I think he got it off, Because he could have made it mainstream. Yeah.

Jordan Scarlett (01:30:09.132) Yeah, he definitely did his thing.

De La Torre (01:30:09.394) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the song he had, I know I saw...

Dan Thompson (01:30:09.806) Yeah.

Corry (Silk) (01:30:13.642) He was just on tour with, I'm forgetting her name right now. I don't know how I'm forgetting her name. my home, I'm sorry, Kelsey's Chick. What's her name? Taylor Swift. He was on tour with Taylor Swift. They had a lot of tour together.

Dan Thompson (01:30:26.604) The Taylor Swift.

De La Torre (01:30:27.526) Taylor Swift. my God. If you bring Taylor down, bad blood, bad blood plays, what?

Corry (Silk) (01:30:32.692) But I'm saying, if you're headlining a tour with Taylor Swift, you're like, mainstream, like you have mainstream fans. So like mainstream, he has a mainstream audience. He just didn't play any mainstream hits. And I think that was more of the issue people had than it just being Kendrick. It was his playlist and he just kept it current.

De La Torre (01:30:52.614) Kendra's got bops, he's got club bangers, he's got number ones. You literally could have played Taylor Swift's Bad Blood, just your verse, pointed up to her at her box, they put a spotlight on her, she would have been dancing, singing, you would have had people in their living rooms, eight, nine, eight to 12 year old girls, yeah, yeah. Kendra doesn't care. He had his message, he stuck to it.

Corry (Silk) (01:31:06.346) But he's trying to watch the party die.

Corry (Silk) (01:31:11.934) Yeah. times.

Dan Thompson (01:31:19.298) Yeah, no, big Kendrick Lamar fan.

De La Torre (01:31:22.556) feel bad for Wayne. Wayne was definitely in his feelings. Also, the Carter VI, my God, thank you. June 6th. Looking forward to it.

Dan Thompson (01:31:29.57) He's he'll be in Tampa in a couple of weeks doing Lil' Wayziana. It's Lil Wayne and the Hot Boy.

Corry (Silk) (01:31:33.78) What y'all wanna hear me sing? Lottie Pop?

De La Torre (01:31:39.64) Lil Wayne's got, Wayne could have done a four hour concert of number one bangers. You could have just done Lil Wayne from five to 10. Just as mixed, just as mixed tapes in his features. I need a project. Yeah. Give me the whole Cash Money crew.

Corry (Silk) (01:31:47.838) Here's the thing, you gotta read the room. Here's the thing, right?

Dan Thompson (01:31:51.31) You want him to bring out juvenile and BG out there?

Corry (Silk) (01:31:55.262) You can't have in 2025, it's hard to have Lil Wayne come out there, know, like his reputation has just been opioid drug use. Like they couldn't sell that in 2025. It's the Super Bowl, bro. Like you gotta be a little bit clean cut. Like what's the most rugged dude they put on the Super Bowl? Like think about it. To headline? They're not about to put Lil Wayne ever as a headliner, bro. It was too, his whole thing has been.

and his image is not clean enough.

He didn't hairline it. He didn't hairline it though.

De La Torre (01:32:30.226) Snoop was on trial for murder. That was like three decades before. That was like three decades before, but yeah. Beat the charges, allegations, erroneous.

Jordan Scarlett (01:32:31.94) you

Corry (Silk) (01:32:36.592) Snoop is a unicorn too, like.

It's just don't care.

Dan Thompson (01:32:41.646) Yeah, he's everywhere, dude. I don't know who his agent is, but he's everywhere. I don't know if he's struggling with money, but he is everywhere, bro. He's in Super Bowl commercials. He's judging stuff. He's with Martha Stewart. He's with Trump. He's everywhere. I'm like...

De La Torre (01:32:41.788) Shout to Snoop.

Corry (Silk) (01:32:45.898) Shouts to the commercials. Yeah. Trump, he in his bag.

Jordan Scarlett (01:32:49.816) That boy got his own cereal, everything.

Jordan Scarlett (01:33:00.324) Yeah, I can't lie. He made the biggest move. think one day he told everybody he was trying to quit smoking or whatever. People was all over his Instagram like, yeah, hold on, stay strong. Don't smoke. That nigga came out. Y'all crazy. And it was like advertising one of his little grills. I'm like, that was a smart move.

Corry (Silk) (01:33:04.089) yeah, it was a barbecue grill.

Dan Thompson (01:33:09.429) Yeah, the smokeless gorilla.

De La Torre (01:33:20.252) Bram, pay the marketing person.

Corry (Silk) (01:33:22.154) All right, out of here.

Dan Thompson (01:33:26.286) All right, Nick, got song of the week. Let's get out of here.

De La Torre (01:33:27.442) buddy.

Corry (Silk) (01:33:31.913) Way back.

De La Torre (01:33:31.922) I think we're gonna go back... I go back country... No, let's do... we'll stick with Kendrick. We're gonna do Mad City though.

Jordan Scarlett (01:33:43.576) Yeah,

De La Torre (01:33:45.274) Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan Thompson (01:33:46.978) All right, well we will see you same corner same time next week. Appreciate everybody for watching this week and have a great week